How to - Publish a Book

Occasionally Poets & Writers have these great little how-to articles, divided into little manageable sections.

How do I publish my book? is one such how-to article. Of course, it's all much easier said than done. So if that route doesn't work for you, you can always take example of today - 666 - and make a deal with Satan. I wonder what kind of rights he offers...

Here are the sections, and I tried to summarize it even further:

Introduction - "Reading work by other writers is essential to developing your craft and helping you learn where to submit your work."

Small Presses vs. Large Publishers - the article recommends small presses because even though advances are smaller, small presses, as opposed to large publishers, "are often open to the work of unknown authors and do not always require writers to contact them through an agent." List of small presses.

Chapbooks - "A chapbook can serve not only as a platform for publishing, but also as a poet's calling card or networking tool."

Submission Guidelines - request and read the guidelines. Follow the required format and every other requirement such as: "a full manuscript or a sample of the work, a cover letter, a query letter, a synopsis, or a book proposal."

What to Expect from Your Publisher - There's a difference here between poetry and fiction. For fiction the contract might include "advance amount, deadlines, and word length."
The process to publication - submission, revised version(s), final version, copyediting, design and cover copy.

What to Expect from a Standard Book Contract - manuscript deadline, length, publication date, cover price, advance against royalties, royalty rate and rights.

Marketing and Distribution - not much unless the author is published with a major house that also decided the effort is worth while.

Self-Publishing and Print-on-Demand Companies - "Self-publishing companies are companies that charge authors a fee to publish their books. Print-on-demand companies are companies that - again, for a fee - store electronic copies of books and print and bind them, in specific quantities, only when orders are received."

Vanity, or Subsidy, Press - a press "that charges a fee to publish an author's work, and then, unlike legitimate print-on-demand companies, retains the rights to the book."

Other Resources

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Categories: writing, publishing, novel, poetry, fiction, non-fiction, business, how-to